Continuity mistake: Dwight is showing Toby a Boy's Life magazine. As the camera angle changes he goes from holding it with the back of his hand facing Toby to facing away and back again. (00:45:50)
Factual error: Arthur and Jack walk by a movie theater where "Island of Lost Women" is shown, which was released in 1959. At this point of the movie we are still in 1957 - the cut to 1959 happens later. (01:03:35)
Continuity mistake: When Jack and his friends release the car's handbrake, it's parked on a steep slope, but in the shot before, when the owner was washing it, the road was perfectly level. (00:19:55)
Continuity mistake: Jack cuts his index finger very badly with a circular saw, and in the next scene his finger is fully bandaged. Then, when he drinks with his friends at the bonfire, the bandage is gone, to be back on for the rest of the movie from the moment when he comes home for dinner after work at A&P. (01:31:15 - 01:33:50)
Other mistake: In the turkey shoot the participants have five shots, but Dwight shoots only four times. (00:28:20)
Continuity mistake: The odometer of Dwight's car appears twice, once when he is driving Jack to Concrete, again when Jack borrows the car without permission. Although much time passes between the two scenes, the odometer reading is the same in both.
Continuity mistake: When Jack looks at the school forms which Arthur has given him, they stick out of the envelope in close up, but are tucked in all the way in the wide shots before and after. (01:27:55)
Answer: It's typical in movies that more scenes are filmed than what makes it into the final film. This has to do with continuity, the film's overall length, plotting, etc. If a certain scene does not serve the overall story structure, then it is edited out. Sometimes the studio insists that certain scenes be cut, even over a director's objections. After a movie is released on DVD, the deleted scenes may be restored in a "director's cut" or there's a separate section showing all the edited portions.
raywest ★
Thanks! Just wanted to make sure I wasn't making it up.